Cultural experiences

Last night I went to a birthday party of someone from my Korean class. On our way there we saw the most bizarre claw game ever. You know the little arcade game where you have to try to pick up your prize with a claw? In this one the prizes are lobsters, which were in a tank awaiting being snatched from above, dropped down three feet to where you can pick up the prize, and then... what on earth would you do with a lobster you got out of an arcade game on the street???


(The one we saw wasn't nearly as nice as the one in the video: it only had about four inches of water and three rather unhealthy looking little lobsters. Just as weird though.)

When we left the party, which took place at a bar on the fifth floor of the building, a couple of us took the stairs down since there were several elevator loads of us, and on the fifth floor there was a guy taking a piss right down the stairs. He didn't even aim into the corner of the room. Also, there was a free bathroom with multiple stalls and urinals right next door to the stairwell. It is socially acceptable to pee pretty much anywhere in Korea, including busy intersections and apparently (judging from the non-reactions of the Koreans with us on the stairs) stairwells. No wonder they take off their shoes when they enter a restaurant or home.

Afterwards about fourteen of us we went to a karaoke room and made fools of ourselves for a few hours. The best part of the karaoke rooms here is that they have videos for the songs, but the videos are weird Korean ones rather than the originals, and they seem to be chosen on the basis of song length rather than tone. Some of my favorites are the video about sniper assassins that accompanied I Will Survive and a Korean rap video (hilarious in and of itself) that was the background for Billy Joel's Piano Man.

At about 3am we went home, where John, Bo and I made our second weekly 3am romen run. Convenience stores here not only sell about twenty kinds of romen, but also have hot water, microwaves, chopsticks, and counter eating space so you can enjoy your romen right there, which is the Korean way to do it. It being 3 am, we are always a bit rowdy and probably a pain in the ass to the poor convenience store clerks, but it is an enjoyable experience.

Read a Book!

Now that there's a video, the world has discovered the Read a Book song, which Reedies have known and loved for years. The sampling of Beethoven's Fifth, the (sadly) much needed message, and the humorous way that message is conveyed combine to make it the only rap song I have ever liked.


(hat tip Andrew Sullivan)

I didn't notice until I watched the video, but the song is pretty heavily directed at the inner city black youth community, but I think it is a message that most Americans need to hear. Andrew Sullivan thinks that it is an anthem for the Obama generation, which makes sense since Obama is all about actually addressing social ills (unlike most Republicans), but also actually demands personal responsibility for those ills instead of blaming everything on society (unlike most Democrats). [Note that philosophically I do think society probably is responsible for our behavior to a large extent, but politically I think that the way to stop behavior we don't like is to change what is culturally acceptable, and so we should have society advocate personal responsibility. Yes, there is irony in society being responsible for our 'personal responsibility', but only with the Plato-esque lie of individual efficacy and responsibility will we change the herd's behavior, whereas an accurate assessment is effectively societal acceptance of the behavior in question.]

Graduation

The graduation for junior highs and high schools was today. This involves the students going nuts: they throw eggs and flour all over the sidewalks, cut their uniforms to shreds, and who knows what else. None of this occurs at my school, which is private and year-round. I just thought that someone lost a bag of groceries off their bike when I saw the eggs and flour strewn across the path on my walk to work. I am not surprised that the kids need to wildly celebrate when they are finally done with school. I have always loved school, but I probably wouldn't have if I had to go twelve hours a day and take other lessons on weekends. They also sometimes have school on Saturdays, including tomorrow, which will be the first day of the semester for non-graduates. The kids in my classes were despondent just thinking about it.

Driving in Korea

A woman in South Korea has failed her driver's license test 771 times so far. I cannot describe to you how terrifying the idea of her driving is considering the things I see licensed drivers do everyday on my walk to work. Unlike the signless narrow roads of Europe,tThe road infrastructure here is perfectly fine: there are multi-lane lined roads with speed limits, stoplights, crosswalks, etc, all of which the people here flat out ignore. Most cars at least slow down for stoplights, but taxis sure as hell don't, and everyone passes on the right or left and changes lanes without turn signals. I don't know how I've only seen one wreck so far. I have come to realize that right of way has little to do with the color of the light or the presence or absence of a crosswalk, but rather goes to whoever has the will to take it. The taxis are the real dangers. I have no idea how they make money since they are super cheap, don't take tips, and charge the same amount regardless of the number of passengers. I guess they make up for it by going so quickly and recklessly. Riding in cabs is not for the feint of heart: there are no seat belts in the back, and I've been in a cab that was going over 140km/h in city, running lights, weaving through traffic, etc.

Also, people will park anywhere that isn't cordoned off by cement pillars. The sidewalk, blocking building entrances, whatever. They would drive on the sidewalk too if not for the pillars. Yet another problem with too many people in such a tiny area. I have mixed feelings about that: I love the idea of urban growth boundaries because I love untamed areas, but I hate the smog, inevitable rows of identical tower apartments, and lack of space that results from this level of population density.

Epistemology

Does anyone know where Eddie got his boots? Apparently Homestar Runner does!

I refuse to believe that there is no photographic documentation of the red moon boots, but I am unable to find any, so if you have pictures please send them my way.

Update: Speaking of philosophy and webcomic-y stuff, the new edition of Dungeons and Discourses is now complete! In the words of Tiny Carl Jung, "This is the best game ever!" Seriously, I want to actually play it someday, especially since the people I have played D&D with are some of the few people anywhere who could pull it off. I would be a Wittgensteinian: at early levels I could trap enemies in rigid logical structures, and at higher levels I could undermine the very idea of following a rule, including the rules of logic, math, language, and (most interestingly for gameplay) physics.

Quote of the week preview

It's only Monday, but there are already some serious contenders for the Quote of the Week. Two entries come from my tutor student (who I am sadly going to lose next week [after only having three sessions with him {wtf?}] and will instead be tutoring his mom). First, he had to draw some animals for the book we are using and he made the hippo and ladybug look unnaturally fierce, so he said that they were spliced with 'monster DNA'. Later, the book had numbers spelled out in ants of the same cardinality, and the eleven ants that spelled out 11 looked a bit like Stonehenge to him so he dubbed it Ant-henge.

However, despite my tutor student providing a wealth of amusement, today's winner comes from my Mars kindergarten class. As I've mentioned, they request that I make simple drawings for them when they finish a page of their workbooks to mark the page as complete and correct and to reward them for that. They often ask for flowers, hearts and vases, and when I start to draw hastily they cry out 'beautiful heart!' or 'beautiful flower!'. Today one of them asked that I draw 'beautiful Batman,' which pretty much made my day.

He's typing in Korean

I finally figured out how to install a Korean font on my computer. Linux can be rather difficult for the uninitiated.

Now I can actually write my Korean name for you: 민준 (MinJun).

Actually, my keyboard is in English, so I can't really type in Korean effectively (much less sing in it).